THIS is not about the recent “Kulo” exhibit controversy where one of the artists shocked and angered a section of the religious community who protested so vehemently that they threatened to start a second Inquisition.
This is about an incident during the inauguration of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) in 1969 when three young artists displayed a banner at the balustrade of the topmost level overlooking the main lobby – denouncing the CCP project. From the second level my wife and I watched the proceedings below where the elite and diplomatic corps — were looking up at the “happening” which caught everyone by surprise.
The young artists were David Medalla, Marciano Galang, and poet Jun Lansang who were left alone for some time until they were hustled off by guards upon orders from a Marcos cabinet secretary whom we saw talking to guards in the lobby. Then we saw below an instant counter-picket of a few non-activist- looking persons with signs praising the CCP project of the First Lady. Ushering them into the lobby was “Kokoy” Romualdez. The counter-picketers lined up near the entrance, with a few looking embarrassed facing the glitterati. The regime must have anticipated some protest after oppositionist Ninoy Aquino had told the Senate that the CCP was “a monument built to the nation’s elite bereft of social conscience—a monument built at a time when the impoverished mass groans in want.”
After the opening, we went to the exhibit of Filipino visual artists in the fourth floor and saw Marciano Galang looking pensively at the blank space where his painting once hung. His work was removed by the CCP management for obvious reasons. Galang has since become an established artist, holding three-man shows with Ben Cabrera or BenCab, and Virgilio Aviado.
Outside the CCP building after the incident, David Medalla, the enfant terrible of the art community during the 50s, told us the CCP building was a monument to fascism like the massive monuments of Mussolini and Hitler. The CCP buildings gained the reputation of being part of the “edifice complex” of the Marcos regime.
Medalla had earlier exhibited his work like the bubble machine – an example of his kinetic and installation art. In the 70s founded the Exploding Gallery in London where he had based himself. I remember him when Prof. Josefina Constantino introduced him to us young UP instructors as a “genius” – just returned from Columbia University where at age 12 he studied literature and philosophy and fine arts. I invited him to lecture to my English lit class where my gifted but older students (like Jun Lansang) took to him instantly. His “Cave of Angels” in a barong-barong area of Ermita where he grew up after the war became a kind of literary/art salon where poetry readings and art exhibits were held, luring bohemian types, young and old writers and artists. This was well before Blue Angel and Indios Bravos of Virginia Moreno and Beatriz Romual-dez. Before leaving for abroad in 1957, he joined a picket of Ravens and friends (Adrian Cristobal, Larry Francia, Danny Villanueva, Andres Cristobal Cruz, Euphemio Patanne, Mor-li Dharam, and Medalla) before the US Embassy. They were protesting the “Roe deal” involving an American sergeant Roe accused of killing a boy scavenger in Crow Valley, Clark air base. The GI was apparently spirited out of the country before trial in a Philippine court. For their audacity, at a time when anti-US rallies were not common, the picketeers were dubbed the Magnificent Seven. In Europe Medalla developed into an international avante-garde artist, with many exhibits and awards.
Jun Lansang was the gifted poet son of the late Lyceum Dean Jose and U.P. Professor Flora Lansang, progressive parents whose other son Lorenzo was martyred along with Lorena Barros and others in the early years of martial law. Dean Lansang was the “guru” of nationalist journalists and revolutionaries like Macario Vicen-cio, Juan Quesada, Jose Maria Sison, and Satur Ocampo. Lansang was a leading light of the pre-war U.P. Writers Club and the Philippine Writers League along with Salvador P. Lopez and Fred Mangahas.
Jun Lansang was my student in the early 50s . He left for the US before us and moved around with Jose Garcia Villa who was introduced to us outside the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village. Jun was then our guide in touring New York that night. It was a brief cordial meeting because Villa, summoned by Jun, was holding court at the time.
I missed the notice that Jun had passed away several years ago, and it was only recently that I read the tributes of poets of his generation. As UP Press director I published his second and last volume of poems, Black or Otherwise, in 1969. He was not only a very lyrical poet but he also had the social vision of his parents –manifested in his work. He left a legacy of excellent poetry in spite (or because ) of wrestling with his daemons much of his life.
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